Whalers Stay On Right Route

With Turcotte, Still Unbeaten

The Whalers had the best record in the NHL during the preseason back in September.

And, now, for the first time in their history, they are unbeaten after the first three games of the regular season.

Numbers can sing, dance and tell some funny tales early in a hockey season and certainly there is no reason for Mayor Mike to plot the parade route down Asylum yet. Or is it Trumbull?

But after the Whalers had used two Darren Turcotte goals to dust off the Ottawa Senators 4-1 Wednesday night before 8,567, it became obvious expectations are substantially higher in the post-lockout world of the Civic Center.

The Whalers will try their act out on the road for the first time this season tonight in Philadelphia against the Flyers (0-3).

``Nobody likes to be on a losing team and for the last couple of years, we've lost a lot of hockey games,'' said goalie Sean Burke, who stopped 26 of 27 to keep his goals-against average(0.96) less than one. ``When you get a little taste of winning, you want to continue it. Our motto this year is `expect to win.'

``We can't come in here anymore and just want to be close. I think we're harder on ourselves and on each other. The coach wasn't all that happy with our performance. So we had about 30 seconds to enjoy it and he brought us right back to earth. I think that's a good thing.''

``We've played three so-so games,'' Holmgren said. ``I'm not very happy with the way we played as a team. We spent five or six minutes in our own zone that we didn't have to by not getting the puck in deep. We can play better and we're going to have to to compete in our conference and get to the final dance.''

The Senators, meanwhile, have opened their season trying to dance with an impossible number of 29 players. With nine sitting out, small wonder there's already plenty of grumbling in the ranks.

``Sooner or later there's going to be a stick fight in practice,'' Dennis Vial, who didn't play, told the Ottawa media.

The Whalers thinned their own ranks after the game, sending Jim Storm, who hadn't played in the three games, to Springfield. That leaves the Whalers with 14 forwards, including Kelly Chase, who suffered a Grade 1 MCL sprain of his right knee and is day to day.

Turcotte said he is OK after a muscle spasm in his chest forced him from the closing minutes. By that time, the line of Turcotte, Jocelyn Lemieux and Jim Sandlak had done its damage.

``You've got experience on that line, some tremendous skill at center ice and two wingers who are willing to sacrifice their bodies,'' said Holmgren, who acquired Turcotte while he was general manager. ``Although Darren's not old [26], he's a skilled guy who's been around, is a very good two-way player and a little underrated offensively.''

After Jimmy Carson had a goal disallowed by video replay judge Frank Quigley, Turcotte scored his first goal since Nov. 20, 1993. He cut in off the right boards, skipped away from Dave McLlwain and whipped a shot past Don Beaupre for a power-play goal to open the scoring. Quigley said Carson brought up his knee to deflect Frantisek Kucera's wrist shot. Carson swears he deflected it past Beaupre with his stick. Kucera was involved in another kooky goal when he accidently kicked the puck in his own net for a goal credited to Sylvain Turgeon.

Turcotte's second goal was much the same as his first. Turcotte assisted on Lemieux's goal at 4 minutes, 16 seconds of the second period when Lemieux escaped the hook of Pat Elynuik and jammed in the rebound of Kucera's shot.

The only goal without Turcotte on the ice came when Pat Verbeek made Beaupre look wobbly, sticking a 50-foot slapshot between his pads.

``Two big guys like us, we enjoy doing the banging while we know somebody's going to make good plays for us [Sandlak and Lemieux],'' Lemieux said. ``He went on some program to gain weight. Maybe his wingers should go on one to lose weight.''

``Turk's got great speed, his biggest asset,'' Burke said. ``He's explosive. You saw it tonight. He gets the puck, two strides and he's open. He's got a good shot. He's a 30-goal man, has been and should be.''

Turcotte scored as many as 32 goals with the Rangers in 1989-90, but only two in 19 games last year with the Whalers before knee surgery. From the day minicamp reconvened, Turcotte has probably been the Whalers' best forward. What did he do during the lockout?

``Rested,'' Turcotte said. ``I worked out hard for the first couple months. From Dec. 17 until I showed up in Hartford, I didn't touch a weight or the bike.''

One thing Turcotte did touch was the TV dial Friday night to watch as the Stanley Cup banner was raised at Madison Square Garden. After more than five seasons with the Rangers, he admits it was an ``emotional'' experience.

``Guys like Mike Richter, Adam Graves, Joey Kocur, Jay Wells, I was really happy for them. Some of them didn't always get the credit they deserved. It was emotional for me.''